Hey everyone! Matt here, DevOps Evangelist at Device42. When I'm not writing blog posts, documentation, or release notes, I'm working to let IT folks all around the world know about the awesome software our Developers are writing here at HQ in West Haven, Connecticut! (I know, you don't exactly think startup "tech company" when you think Connecticut ... pretty cool, eh!?)

That aside, I love cars (and dogs!), and have been a hands-on tech geek for as long as I can remember. Lots of kids take things apart, so as far as I've heard, but I spent my childhood and younger years taking things apart AND managed to re-assemble them (I'm thinking I got it from my Grandfather on my father's side, who was a self-trained engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft, no formal schooling).

I have always been drawn to things with engines: Anything from rebuilding (and customizing!) lawnmowers and their engines to COX string control and then radio control airplanes and helicopters, to computers to cars and motorcycles as I got older. I'm a really big fan of newer cars [fuel injected, OBD 1+], as at least in my book, there's not much cooler then combining the awesome power of combustion with turbocharging and the equally awesome power of computers to make it all run like it came out of a factory, and stay together, too!

The way I look at it, if you haven't had to re-flash your ECU, your car is stock! :)

On my desk: An ASUS ROG laptop tucked under a pair of 23" monitors, a USB docking station over to the left with a pair of wireless headphones charging from it; To the right, a small shelf with everything from tea and honey to energy drinks to gushers and devil dogs (new: chocolate covered ... they're delectable!). Tissues, cough drops, advil and tylenol, and clorox wipes as well [not a neat freak; just a fan of clean], and of course a lovely "Blue Yeti" Mic for media creation and the like along with a rosewill mechanical keyboard.

Oh, and an empty bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola; I'm not exactly sure why. I guess I really like idea of real coke from a glass bottle. It seems to take itself more seriously than plastic, and think more of itself than a can.

I've been talking about (well, more thinking about than talking) getting a small fish tank for my desk. I'm on the fence, but I've been keeping fish for more than a decade, and my fish seem to live forever (don't overfeed them, and keep tanks clean!).

For the record, I am a big fan of Atlassian software. I've been a JIRA / Confluence user and administrator for quite a while, having used it (and come to really, really like it) over the course of my last few jobs ... it's a long story, but it started when I worked for Yodle in NYC, and I brought it with me to my last office ... it's been with me ever since. I was really pumped when I got here and we were using both JIRA and Confluence, and then really pumped when I found out that we were integrating Device42 with both...!

Yay, welcome to the community! I always wanted a desk fish too but didn't want to have to keep it alive. (I loved those ecosystem balls until I found out they were inhumane.) Here was my solution. Her name is Francesca, aka Bubbles.

You may also want to check out the vendor guidelines if you haven't already. We offer the option for vendors to write general interest articles for the community. You're clearly a great writer and I bet you could write some awesome articles :)

@Matt Altieri Wow, I feel like I know you already! Such a great intro post. With your expertise & passion for Atlassian, you're a great candidate for our Community Champion program — look forward to seeing more of you!

Hi everyone, my name is Adil Qureshi. I'm a researcher at Atlassian, presently working on Confluence. I'm a part of an awesome research team (see pic, I'm on the left) that works to understand what users want from our products and try to make that a reality!! It's great to be part of community which is awesomely managed by @Monique van den Berg and @Erica Moss.

Very new to Jira and confluence. The company am I consulting to has decided to implement ITIL processes for their internal IT department (small but growing) and after doing a bunch of research on YouTube decided to try to Jira. We are all just fumbling around trying to get it set up. I thought it would be a good idea to join the community to see how others are using this tool and learn from them.

Company is based in GTA (Toronto) and London UK. Hope to learn from all of you.

We are using (piloting) Service Desk. Subscription we bought has confluence licenses as well. We are very early on in the project and the pilot and just setting up our projects to see how they work. One question that came up right away is about KB. Is there a standard KB available for traditional desktop support (is computer on ? is your internet up ?) - or are we going to end up writing our own KB for basic stuff ?

I'm a university student from Italy, I'm also a blogger and productivity apps geek. I'm currently writing my master thesis by day and running a personal blog and I also collaborating with other websites by night. And I have to thank Trello for keeping me sane! :)

@Monique van den Bergwhenever you want! I'm a huge fan of Sherlock, I visited 221b but only the shop, not the museum unfortunately. I'm currently half way through the stories (I have the huge Kindle edition with them ALL) and sadly never met Cumberbatch. What about you? 🙂

@Alice Causarano also a huge fan! I haven't been to London in decades so have not had the chance yet to visit 221b -- and sadly no Cumberbatch either :) But it's a great show. I've also been known to read Sherlock fanfiction, but don't tell anyone 🤣

I'm a digital marketer at DevMads Ltd. Our company develops an agile planning tool, called StoriesOnBoard. It's integrated to Trello (and also to JIRA). I'm using Trello and StoriesOnBoard for building up an agile workflow for agile marketing planning and executing. So I'm ready to help you on the following topics: software development solutions and agile marketing solutions.

Hello, Community. My name is Volodymyr. I 've been working as Jira and Confluence administrator since August 2015. Now I'm working in L2 Support team as Atlassian Administrator. These days I'm preparing for my Atlassian Certification and studying Java and Groovy. Looking forward getting in touch with you.

Correct, @Monique van den Berg, the organization for which I work builds and sells homes. We have a great deal of software that supports that process, so we use Jira and Confluence to support our software development.

My name is Meg and I am the JIRA system administrator and Business Applications Lead for a midsize mortgage company located in Sacramento, CA. I administer both Cloud and Server products. Some of my other roles include technical/training writing, designing press releases on new features, creating program integrations, and managing our enterprise help desk.

I'm leading the charge for Atlassian products in my organization and am constantly looking for new teams to onboard (five so far!). It's been a bit difficult to connect with the nearest AUG (San Francisco), but I'm excited to see that there's a brand new one in Sacramento even though there are only two members.

I attended the Atlassian Summit 2017 and had a great time listening to keynotes and meeting vendors. I learned a lot from the admin class I attended as well as the breakout sessions... the snacks were also great ^_^

My goals this year are to find enough time to get around to my admin cert as well as to develop a deeper connection to the Atlassian community. Up to this point, I've been a forum lurker. I would love to find more ways to contribute.

On my desk:

Plants, coffee cups in various stages of 'caffeine-ation', and more pens than I could ever use in my life.

As a user group leader, I connected with your comment about small groups and just wanted to encourage you to bring folks from the teams you've onboarded (and even ones you're trying to convince)! We've had new people attend our AUG and things "clicked" for them after seeing how other companies were using the products. Seeing it in your own environment is definitely awesome, but sometimes seeing generic usage helps people get their minds out of "my own work problems" and just focus on what the tool can do.

My name is Darrel and I am a systems administrator for Capgemini UK supporting the atlassian tools, jira, confluence, fisheye, bamboo and bitbucket for a major UK Government department... We have a clear desk policy so just the monitors and a pic of my 3 lads keep me focussed throughout the working day.

Hi, I'm Marina. I am working as operations manager at a company for herdbook software and genetic evaluation for livestock in Switzerland. We are using Jira, Confluence and ServiceDesk. One year ago we started to use Tempo Timesheets for timetracking which makes invoicing a lot easier.

I started implententing Jira in our processes nearly two years ago and meanwhile it would be hard to work without all these great tools. I did most of the administration to fit Jira and helped to set up Confluence spaces. Now most of the administration is done in a small team of three people and I am happy not to do all this on my own.

In my spare time I like being outdoor. I go trailrunning, hiking, kayaking and I've got a passion for riding road bike - and Switzerland is a great country for all of these activities 😉

As you see, I try to keep my desk simple but with some color. Colored notes and my coffee to go cup to keep it warm!

I'm Markus from Germany, Saarland. I start Atlassian 5 years ago als User and go my way to Administrator. We use Confluence, Jira Software and Servicedesk, Stride and Trello. I'm very sad about the out of hipchat.

I'm also look for Best Practices and Share. Help on Problems and join nice People. I was last year in Barca on the European Summit, it was awesome.

@Amy Marley I know what you mean. My daughter has a room and a closet that should be enough to hold her stuff, but somehow we have art supplies and toys and games everywhere! Right now it's a race: will I have time to get organized before she grows up and goes to college? We'll see! The clock is ticking, I only have ten years left!

Woah very cool @Amy Marley and jealous of your potential setup! I just have one girl at 1 who's barred from the basement where my desk is, but it's rather unfortunately directly underneath her usual play area. A separate non-attached space for a desk would be super nice! And looks like you get gobs of sun :)

Thanks @Daniel Eads and @Erica Moss. They definitely get up to lots of discovering mischief at 1, so totally understand the basement restriction! Perth gets sunshine for most of the year, even during winter there are still plenty of sunny days...feel lucky cause I'm def a sun lover ...esp after a long stint of computer time!